A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

June 25, 2008

It wasn't "your home". It never was. You couldn't afford it. You never should have been approved for the loan. You probably committed mortgage fraud to get it. You got caught up in Angelo Mozilo's profit-at-any-cost mortgage-fraud-galore Ponzi Scheme. You believed The Big Lie. You believed debt equaled wealth. And you believed you could live like you were rich.

So let this be your wake up call. Your home is worth nowhere near what you paid. Nowhere near. Your choice now is to simply turn in the keys, walk away, start over and rent (for a fraction of the cost of 'owning'), or you can continue to live the Big Lie, because of your ego and your pride. And those swell granite counter tops of course.

Walk away Homedebtors. Send Angelo the keys. Get on with your lives.

This game is over.

And take some solace in the fact as you start your life over, Angelo Mozilo himself will soon be on his way to jail, his riches confiscated, his reputation in tatters.

67 comments:

I really don't understand this. Where did the money go since these people didn't make the loan payments? If they didn't completely waste it, why couldn't they make the catchup payments or put the money in an escrew account, then hire a lawyer to sort it out with CFC?

CFC taking the house back at foreclosure auction just means that the house is worth less than the loan amount. The house actually looks decent for $124k, but of course, it's all location, location and location.

Is CFC so dumb as to be going through a foreclosure because a scheme to bilk the debtors an extra $8k ($124k-$116k) went bad? Typical foreclosure process costs the bank far more than that. Something is missing in this story.

Note to self: I need to find out where in the country these cheap houses are, so I too can afford my own brood of offsprings. LOL. Seriously, these folks need their own currency, a much stronger currency. No wonder Fisher (of Dallas Fed) is peeved seeing how the east coast bankers shove around shacks that cost 10 times as much. People in those low income area of the country are robbed blind by the bankers on the two coasts, not necessarily through any mortgage lending scam, but the through the sheer fact that they are forced to use the same money . . . money that buys vastly differnt amount of labor/resources depending on location.

"Are you sure about that Keith, because home rpices here in NJ are only down about 5%, which is not that big of a decline"

Ya, the dollar has declined 30% and the home price has stayed the same or declined 20% in some areas. In real dollars, that is a 50% haircut in bubble areas and a 30% haircut across the board. And now we have a jammed credit market too.

That was odd. Why move into a hotel? WTF? no rentals in town? They were late one payment and then didn't make any payments because they thought it would be tacked onto the back end. Where did the money go during those months they were living mortgage payment free? should have been able to catch up.

They were late on a payment because the husband missed a couple of days of work? again WTF? his monthly paycheck should have been 10% less. he should have pawned his drum set.

Something ain't right about this story. If they didn't make payments for a while they should have cash on hand. If CFC threatens foreclosure you immediately stop sending them any money and live there rent free as long as possible. Try to fight foreclosure in court to eek out a few more month of free rent. Maybe you're lucky and they lost the promisory note in which case you might be in for a couple of years of free rent. Once the end is near you completly strip the place down and sell the stuff to pawn shops, contractors or where ever. In the end you should be sitting on 12+ month of rent if you didn't blow the money. CFC gets a carcass of a house and you find a new place to rent. Big deal.

in my circle of friends it was all about keeping up with the Joneses.if a friend bought a house the other one one bought one too,if the other guy's wife didn't work, the other would pull his out of work too.

now, most of them are loosing the houses they bought at peak and the ones that still have it are working all 7 days of the week, and the wives are back at work....

What city was this in? (Maybe the video contained that info, but I missed it?) Whether the house cost $116K or $124K, it looked like a pretty nice house.

I also wonder if there is something missing from the story. Even if the husband was out of work briefly, if the husband and the wife were both working, why can't they afford a $124K house?

BUT, I actually do believe them when they say that Countrywide LIED to them about the "special program" they were offered.

I don't know what these people were driving, or what kind of income they have, but the house did not appear to be extravagantly decorated, etc. It would be interesting to know more about why they couldn't hang on to the house.

Why didn't they delay having one of their kids a few months so they could make an extra mortgage payment in advance. They said he was only off of work for a couple of days, if you are so thin on margins that a couple of days will f*ck you, you shouldn't put yourself in that tight of a situation.

Although we can safely assume Countrywide is a bunch of skunks that would commit any sort of fraud, something tells me the loser couple in the video isn't telling us the full story.

They're better off losing the house. Just tell the mother to close her legs, stop having kids and move on their lives.

For all homedebtors who are waffling between walking away or not, you might as well quit making your payments now. The sooner you get foreclosed on, the sooner you can "start the clock" on repairing your credit so you can make the same dumbass financial mistakes 7 years from now.

Why didn't they delay having one of their kids a few months so they could make an extra mortgage payment in advance.

What I want to know is why people like this who can't even afford ramen are having kids in the first place. It's funny how so many rich who can afford kids are choosing not to have them, while trailer trash who can't put food on the table as it is keep pumping them out.

Geez, if you can't afford birth control, then just pull out for chrissakes.

It reminds me of a show I saw the other night - a bunch of teenage runaways were living together in a shack, no food, skinny and malnourished, but - guess what - they all had cell phones.

Responsiblity needs to be taken by these borrowers, many who knew very well that prices were inflated, but banked on the *assumption* that prices would forever keep going up-and-up.

Now that realestate prices are rapidly tanking across the country, the mortgage lender is being held completely responsiblefor the carnage.

I do agree CountryWide (and the others) used predatory lending tactics with many borrowers, and for that they need to be punished, but there needs to be some accountability on these borrower's as well, or else we'll never get housing back where it needs to be for the majority of working class people in this country.

Let's not forget that many of these same borrowers were bad-mouthing renters as "2nd-class" citizens when they were riding the realestate wave in never-never land, when in fact, they're were just renting as well - but with exceedingly higher risk.

in my circle of friends it was all about keeping up with the Joneses.if a friend bought a house the other one one bought one too,if the other guy's wife didn't work, the other would pull his out of work too.

now, most of them are loosing the houses they bought at peak and the ones that still have it are working all 7 days of the week, and the wives are back at work....

"Why didn't they delay having one of their kids a few months so they could make an extra mortgage payment in advance. They said he was only off of work for a couple of days, if you are so thin on margins that a couple of days will f*ck you, you shouldn't put yourself in that tight of a situation."

I think that's basically what this story should have been about, in addition to the fact that Countrywide sucks. Instead, the lazy reporter never covered what you mention....that too many Americans live on the edge and don't seem to realize it until it's too late. And once it's too late, they want to either blame someone else, or plead for a bailout, or both. And now we have a $300 billion bailout bill championed in the Senate by a man who got his mortgage through Angelo himself.

I am not defending countrywide. What it did was flat out lying to their customer which is illegal.

BUT...clearly the family was living beyond their means. He said the loan went from $116K to $124K BEFORE they went into foreclosure and were subject to insane rates that come with that if you can get financed.

Anyway, the payments on the house could not have gone up more than a few hundred dollars a month. I would bet under $500 more a month worst case.

They were living maxed out check to check if they could not handle that.

Moral of the story...if they could afford a $116K house when times were good they should have gotten a $90K house, saved their surplus income, and then traded up to a $116K house when they could pay the difference in CASH.

START SMALL and build up. People have been jumping into granite top, cul de sac, HOA, etc...homes as 1st homes.....STOP IT!!!!

Actually, I do feel really bad for this family. It does appear that they were lied to. They did have a fixed rate mortgage beforehand. It does appear that their only mistake was asking Countrywide for assistance and taking their word on things. This is a really unfortunate case...I am pretty hard core on no bailout and that this bubble was fueled by greedy stupid Americans, but I have to say that this case makes me feel pretty bad and I hope Countrywide goes down in a ball of fire with the orange man right behind it.

I think this illustrates how it would have been fine if this family had done business with a local credit union that would have cared more for the individual customer and the regional circumstances of the hurricane, etc. There was a day in the not so distant past when you could have gone in person to the loan officer at your local bank or credit union and they would have helped you out...

Which is worse: naiveté, or malice aforethought?"--------------------------------That's very noble of you. Perhaps the real culprit is the education system that didn't teach these people basic math skills. Malicious afterthought is what you get when you leave everyone else holding the bag. People need to do what they can to support their families - including getting a 2nd job and working weekends - and ignorance doesn't invite you to blame other people because you didn't do your own homework or have the typical 3-6 months expenses saved. What the heck were these people going to do if their roof caved in or their boiler broke? The internet is teeming with affordability calculators. I don't understand how people can't figure out how to add up all of their monthly expenses and subtract that from how much is in their monthly paycheck to figure out how much they have left over to spend on housing. If nothing else, I hope regulations are put into effect to halt the rampant greed and that the people that were "duped" learned a valuable lesson that they won't repeat. These people can go out and rent somewhere else now - but the investors and ultimately the rest of the tax payers are going to pay heavily for their naivite - our economy is in utter shambles over this mess and for that I have malicious afterthought.

"Let's not forget that many of these same borrowers were bad-mouthing renters as "2nd-class" citizens when they were riding the realestate wave in never-never land, when in fact, they're were just renting as well - but with exceedingly higher risk."

'What I want to know is why people like this who can't even afford ramen are having kids in the first place. It's funny how so many rich who can afford kids are choosing not to have them, while trailer trash who can't put food on the table as it is keep pumping them out.'

I just have to tell this story of a friend of mine...it's kind of long...

In 2005, a friend asked me with her high and mighty attitude, if my husband and I were EVER going to buy another house...

I responded, we would when prices came down. She laughed at me under her breath...

The tables have now turned: Now she doesnt ask...she only complains about the maintance on her overpriced, heloc'ed 1940 POS house every weekend. No more bragging about how much her "cute little house" is worth, and how much it would be worth if it was located in the bay area. Now, she's completely upside down, since she borrowed every penny she could out of it 3 years ago...

Just recently, she had a dishwasher installed illegaly without permits, by her brothers who had to counter sink it into the wall, and now the electrical system can't support it. The breaker keeps shutting off, and her coffee pot plug blew out when she plugged it in last week. She's returning the pot and telling them the plug is faulty!

I'm not stupid, but doesnt the wires get hot and this starts a fire in the walls?

But of course... she doesnt have money to upgrade the electrical system since she had to buy the dishwasher, and had her brothers do the illegal installation for her, but she had extra money to go to Yosemite and to get digital cable and a huge 42inch Samsung HD TV last month which was purchased with the government check....

I loved the crying wife. The sobbing and emotional trauma always adds so much and make me laugh, belch and fart all at once.

I especially enjoyed the shot of her digging out the front yard plants knowing they were going to a motel for the future. Just another flimsy, no class, no manners piece of shit yuppie not content unless they are stealing something or getting something for nothing. THey should come to California. We have great welfare for grifters like this.

She probably bullied the poor, dumb, ignorant man into the house purchase, a'la another low rent douchebag Suzanne REALTOR.

WE CAN DO THIS!

Birth Control, rent receipts and a Emergency Fund could have saved them. BUT THEY WERE ENTITLED TO BE HOMEOWNERS...

Also, if the man had a pair of balls he wouldn't be sleeping in a Super 8 now. Imagine the shame and loathing. He probably turned into a crack head wife-beater child-molester by now... Lock up your cats...

Fuck them. They are symptoms of the deadly housing-credit disease death-sentence we are all going to be paying for forever. I hope this families children grown healthy strong, so they can work 60-90 hours a week and pay 45-70% in taxes to fund my very cushy, comfortable high cash-flow and healthy retirement.

They can sleep in the gutter for all I care. Make their way to the nearest FEMA camp maybe?

Those kids can thank theirrotten, greedy irresponsible deadbeat parents for their plight.

The video is very lopsided against the mortgage company. I'm not defending them but responsible reporting would have been to at least attempt to get the other side of the story.

They should have just made the payment late, paid the late fees, and continued with their original loan. Countrywide would not have been sending forclosure notices within that month. They didn't make payments for multiple months to have that happen. I'm guessing they saw an opportunity to defer more than one month's payment and jumped at it because they were already living on the edge.

Most of these commenters didn't watch the video. This was not a family getting in on a teaser, getting in over their head, or trying to scam the system. They can afford their mortgage payment, but apparently the deferment program is an exploder.

So let this be your wake up call. Your home is worth nowhere near what you paid. Nowhere near. Your choice now is to simply turn in the keys, walk away, start over and rent (for a fraction of the cost of 'owning'), or you can continue to live the Big Lie, because of your ego and your pride. And those swell granite counter tops of course.

________

Rent from whom? A f***ed buyer (FB)?

You know, your car isn't worth what you paid for it either.

If you a fool who looks at houses and/or cars as investments, the joke is on you.

A car is for driving, a house is for living in.

You should quit masturbating over the housing crash and start to figure out how you're going to deal with hyperinflation, which, when it comes, ushers in VERY RAPID appreciation of things.

Cash IS NOT KING. Keith bought that mantra hook, line and sinker. When "money" is being created by central banks at breakneck speed, cash is never king.

Get some serious trading and investing chops, and stop all of your whining.

If you weren't buying gold and silver on dips as I've been preaching for the last two years, you are extremely foolish.

I almost bought a house about this time last year, thru CountryWide.But I googles 'complaints against', and got out of it the next day. There were page after page of stories even then of how this company will come up with any shceme to get the house back. One person said that they were being foreclosed in 30 days because CW said their property taxes had risen, but they had never received a notice, so since it was part of their payment, they were now behind, and of course huge fees were also tacked on. CW will do any and everything fraudulent to foreclose. All they care about are the closing cost fees, then to dump the current 'owners' so they can re-sell the house and get more closing cost fees and so on and on.... That has been the deal all along.You know, even if this piece of shit Mozillo goes to jail, his is only one life, and can't begin to pay for the millions he has destoyed.Wonder how someone can be so fucking insecure, as to tan himself so much and think that no matter how much money he makes, he will never be perfect enough or good enough. How can someone so dispise themselves that they destroy so many lives in a quest for love and acceptance...."if I get x amount of money, that'll show 'um'or it's 'maybe then she will love me".What the fuck did his parents do to him.Maybe it was some kid on the playground when he was 6.And maybe it was a woman.I guarantee you, he doesn't even know what he's done.Has no clue.

Nah, that's just your girly emotions trying to play tricks on you. Don't give in to the bull$shit around you...like those celebs selling you crap you don't need, so they can buy $10k handbags and get $3k massages with your money. Tough it up, girl.

I too, believe this defferal program with CW was F'd up, and they were probably lied to...but I have to agree with a former poster, who questions WHERE the money went????

If your hubby was only out of work for 3 days, and you worked, you shouldnt have been blown out like that, so someone isnt being entirely honest here.

Also--PEOPLE!! If you take Nothing else away from a story like this, please take this--Our economy is about to go into the SHITTER big time. You damn well better have as much debt paid down as humanly possible, and a 6 month cash cushion in the bank, because you could very well need it. DO NOT live beyond your means, but get as lean as you can. If that means selling cars, or trying to sell your house and downsize, DO IT NOWWWWW

We are about to get hit by a Tsunami, and it's going to get ROUGH.....

It is greed, blatant disregard for other people and an arrogance unmatched in the history of humanity that will prove to be America's undoing. Hard work and ethics have been mocked at and get rich quick schemes have been promoted for that last few decades with unabashed cheerleading.

If I were president, I would get the f**k out of other people's lands and bring our soldiers home. Our defense policy would to pave the countries whose citizens attack us, with govt. support or not. Bring back our troops, institute this policy as applicable the moment the last American soldier leaves foreign soil and that will take care of all external threats. Guaranteed!

I'll take you up on your "guarantee". Our military can't even find Bin Laden; under your policy we'd flatten any place we suspected him of hiding in. Way to be humane and build relationships, Miss President.

"I'm not stupid, but doesnt the wires get hot and this starts a fire in the walls?"

Yes they do. That is why the National Electrical Code is published by the National Fire Prevention Association.

Depending on the layout of the house a licensed electrical contractor could have pulled a dedicated 20 Amp circuit for the diswasher as code requires for about half of what her 42" TV cost. And have it done in about 2 to 3 hours. Panel upgrade is a very good idea for a 60 year old house but then you're looking at $1500 to $2000.

The upside of the f*cked up wiring is she'll be out from under her debt trap POS house when it burns down but the insurance company will go through those ashes looking for any reason not to pay when they review her finances.

The bottom line is the sheeple don't give two sh!ts about anything their neighbors can't see. A guy who does marble counters can walk in and give the sheep an estimate of $5000 and the sheep think they're getting a bargain. An electrician tells them it will cost $300 so that he can spend a couple hours in their basement pulling a circuit that will prevent their cherrywood cabinets ($15,000-$20,000?) from burning to the ground and they act like the electrician is an aluminum siding salesman trying to screw them.

First off...nobody really owns land. Yeah, that's right. You do not own "your" land. Let's get one thing straight, you can choose between monthly or yearly rent. You choose between "owning" and "renting". That's the "power" you have.

It's called property taxes, people. If you don't pay this yearly rent (ooops, I mean "property tax") you get kicked out and they rent it out (I mean "sell") it to someone else. Also, if you make any improvements on "your" property, you pay higher "property taxes" (RENT) Think I'm making shit up? Try not paying that yearly rent once, THEN we'll see what happens to "your" three story house. Plus, when you throw in government busybodies zapping your property rights and greedy school districts taxing the living hell out of you, real estate is nothing more than very expensive rent. "Owning private property" is a very expensive fantasy, I don't know about you, but I think I'll just face reality so I can keep the fuckin' money.

So the next time you drive past a trailer park, don't smirk. You probably don't OWN any more than those people do. In fact, if you live on credit cards, you may own even less. They most likely have that old $600 beater truck paid for-they own it...but do you have that brand new SUV paid for? (you know, the one you had to have) No? Well hey, guess what: It still belongs to the bank, ya buttfuck!